#This AU politely ignores Wizards and Rise of the Titans

[earth-ambassador-jim]

Time Has Passed Me By

AO3 ~ Fanfiction

Finally answering this fic request from @rosemaidenvixen . It's been hanging out in my WIPs almost finished for the past 3 years or so.

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Awareness returned slowly: the sound of rushing water, faint flickering white light, the taste of minerals, the smell of damp earth, and the press of hard stone. He wasn’t sure how long he lay there, simply existing as part of his surroundings.

He grew restless and attempted to stand. His first attempt failed but he eventually struggled to his feet and stood there, weak kneed and uncertain. He was in a cavern. Water flowed over the grey stone beneath him and clear crystals hemmed him in from every side. Some of them glowed with a faint white light, most were grey and dead. He stared for a while before his attention turned to himself.

He… Draal… yes that was his name… Draal looked down at his hands and found the blue of his stone crisscrossed with clear white crystal that matched those surrounding him. It reminded him of something Nomura had shown him in her museum one time: a broken vase that humans had repaired with gold.

He looked at his other hand and found that the prosthetic was still there but spikes of white crystal where growing out of it. He tested it and found that it still moved.

Feeling a little more awake now Draal looked at his surroundings again. Where was he? Where was…

“Jim!”

He remembered then: being controlled by Gunmar and forced to fight his friends. Coming to Merlin’s cave and being freed from the spell. Jim finding him. The fight against Gunmar and Angor Rot. Sacrificing himself to save Jim. And finally falling as the poison swiftly claimed him.

Now he was properly awake. Draal wasn’t sure how he was still alive but he had to get out. The Trollhunter needed him.

Eventually Draal had been able to follow the flow of the water to an exit. Unfortunately the sun was still high in the sky so he was forced to wait until it set before he could continue.

Upon exiting the cave he found himself in an open area ringed about by dense forest. He frowned trying to remember what he could from his time under Gunmar’s control to get some idea of where he was. They’d taken a gyre so he was likely far from Arcadia. The question was how far?

Eventually he gave up and just followed the river. It would likely lead him to a human town and he could figure out where he was based on the language. He really wished he had taken Jim up on his offer of a cell phone.

He walked all night and halfway through the next day –keeping to the shadows of the forest- before he came upon a town. It was small. Humans bustled about going about their daily business. Draal crept closer, trying to hear what language they were speaking. It was just then that the couple he was watching turned their attention to the left and waved at someone approaching them.

Draal’s eyes widened with shock when he saw that the newcomer was a troll. They stood unaffected in the full light of the sun, wearing strange clothing, and struck up a conversation with the humans before them as if it was the most normal thing in the world.

The humans and the troll chatted for several minutes before going their separate ways, the humans into one of the buildings and the troll toward the forest. Draal quietly followed.

Was this strange troll an impure? That would explain its tolerance to sunlight.  Perhaps the whole village was changelings. In the time they’d been together Nomura had once joked that maybe changelings should just abandon both humans and trolls to form their own culture.

The maybe-changeling had now entered the forest. Draal followed patiently. It was best to wait until they were far enough from the village that they wouldn’t be heard.

The young troll it seemed was foraging for wild herbs. Every once and while he would stop and pull out his scissors to carefully take some plants.

Finally they were sufficiently far from the village.

Draal’s initial thought was to pounce on the troll from behind, pin him down and force the truth out of him, but something made him hesitate. He felt like the might be more to the situation. A puff of air left his nostrils as his lips quirked up slightly. It was Jim’s influence no doubt.

He moved to stand behind the troll.

“Greetings,” He said in trollish.

The troll let out a surprised yelp and spun around, mane fluffing up.

“Holy shit dude! Where did you come from?” He paused and looked Draal up and down before frowning. “Actually where did you come from? I haven’t seen you before and our town isn’t really a big tourist destination.”

Draal hesitated and then replied: “Arcadia.”

The troll blinked and his brows went up.

“Like Heartstone Troll Market Arcadia?”

Draal nodded.

“Lively!” He said, now looking interested. “Do you live in Trollmarket?”

Draal nodded again.

“Wow. I’ve always wanted to visit. I hear the Heartstone is wicked awesome. I’m Smleck, by the way. So what brings you to this neck of the woods?”

“What country is this?” Draal asked slowly.

He was a bit offput by the young troll’s strange way of talking. He talked more like Jim and his friends than any troll Draal knew.

“Oh this is France.”

It was going to be a long trip home it seemed.

“What where you doing talking to those humans?”

Smleck cocked his head in confusion.

“They’re my friends…?”

“But humans aren’t supposed to know about trolls,” Draal said irritably. He had the distinct feeling he was missing some important point.

“What are you talking about?”

They stared at each other for a long moment.

“Also how where you out in the sunlight?”

Have you been living under a rock?” Smleck asked incredulously.

“It seems so,” Draal said.

Smlech set down his basket and leaned up against a tree. He tapped his chin.

“Do you know what year it is?”

“By the human or troll standard?”

Smleck blinked slightly.

“Umm, let’s go with human.”

“2016,” Draal responded.

Smleck’s mouth fell open.

“What the heck. That’s… that’s… Have you been just living on your own all this time? Or did you get caught up in some time magic or something?”

Draal frowned.

“I was injured and just regained consciousness… Why?”

Smleck ran his hands through his mane and took a breath.

“Okay.. so don’t freak out but… You haven’t been out for a day or two… you’ve been out for over a millennia. It’s 3032 now.”

Draal froze and for a moment all he could hear was the roaring in his ears. His first thought was that the fight with Gunmar was probably over. Then he remembered that Smleck had mentioned Heartstone Trollmarket, so they must have won.

His next thought was to ask Smleck if the Trollhunter had survived, but then he remembered that humans rarely ever lived over a century. So whether Jim survived the war against Gunmar or not he was…

Then it occurred to him that after a millennia had past then most of even the trolls he knew would be gone now. He was well and truly alone then.

“Is there a gyre near here?” He asked. “I would like to return to Arcadia.”

Smleck was giving him a pitying look that made Draal want to punch him but he refrained.

“I can do you one better actually.”

~~~~

“One better” Turned out to be a portal. Not one of dark magic like Claire used but a vortex of glowing blue energy created from what Smleck told him was Akiridian technology. Apparently all he had to do was have the station master set his destination and he would just have to walk through the portal and he’d be in Arcadia.

He was a little wary of the device but it turned out to be painless. A welcome change from the nausea inducing gyre.

Draal readjusted his bracelet as he exited the station. On their way there Smleck had dragged him over to the local hospital to get it. Apparently it was a “UV” blocker. All trolls wore them now. It allowed them to safely walk under the sun. Draal shook his head. It was truly a strange world.

Trolls and humans walked the streets that were once familiar to Draal and other stranger creatures besides. Following his instincts more than his eyes he made his way to Trollmarket.

~~~~

Heartstone Trollmarket was the strangest part of this future world to him. The changes to the outside world where somehow less jarring. A myrid of beings, some familiar, some the likes of which he had never seen before, walked side by side on its streets and argued over wares in the stalls.

Still despite the strangeness there was familiarity to the paths he’d spent so long walking and he found his feet taking him to an opening in the stone over which hung a glowing sign shaped like the Sword of Daylight. He stood for a moment wondering at the lack of change but then passed under it and through the tunnel into hero’s forge.

The outside world may have changed but the forge was as he remembered. Automatically he eyes searched the forms of the past Trollhunters to find his father. Kanjigar still stood where he had last seen him. Draal pressed his fist to his chest and bowed his head for a moment.

He then started to look around for another form. Jim should have a statue somewhere around here. He knew that humans did not turn to stone like trolls when they fell but the tradition was too strong for him to have left unremembered so Draal expected to find a statue carved in the likeness of Jim. He was curious what sort of a man the boy he knew had become.

There were no new statues to be seen.

A frown traced his lips. If trollkind had failed to honor Jim just because he was human…

It was just then that he heard steps sounding in the entrance. Draal quickly moved into an alcove out of sight.

A troll wearing some sort of human uniform walked into the forge. He walked on two legs and was lean and lanky in proportion. A mane hung thick all around his face and neck like Aaarrrgghh’s but blue-black in color. He had a long leonine tail and three-pronged curving horns. His eyes and nose where strangely human.

The troll looked around for a moment and then pressed his hand to his chest. With a flash of blue armor materialized around him. Draal stilled. So this was the new Trollhunter.

He wandered over to the edge of the forge and pressed the bottom to set off the blades and platforms. His movements where quick and graceful and he danced around the traps with casual ease, going through strikes and parries as if he was battling some imaginary foe.

A smirk curled across Draal’s lips. He couldn’t leave the new Trollhunter to practice on his own. He grabbed an ax from the weapons pile beside him, waited until the troll came a little closer and then rolled up and shot out from his hiding place.

The Trollhunter had his back to Draal when he uncurled and brought his ax down on him but his ears twitched back and Daylight came up to redirect the blow so the troll could move out from under it. Draal was rather pleased.

The troll put some space between himself and Draal before actually looking at him. When he did, he went dead still, eyes widening.

“Draal?” He breathed out.

Draal blinked, caught off guard by the familiarity in the voice of this troll that he’d never met before.

“Impossible,” The troll muttered to himself. “It can’t be…”

Something about this rubbed Draal the wrong way. He let out a growl and lunged forward putting the strange troll on the defensive.

“Don’t drop your guard Trollhunter,” He rumbled narrowing his eyes. “How do you know me?”

The troll was still staring at him but not yet fighting back, only blocking.

“Know?” He blinked at Draal.

His mouth formed and “o” and his eyes widened.

The two jumped apart as an ax fell between them.

“I forgot that you weren’t there,” He said. “You know me Draal. It’s me: Jim.”

At that anger coursed through Draal. How dare this troll take him as a fool? How dare he pretend to be Draal’s friend?

With a roar Draal lunged forward.

“Don’t you dare pretend to be Jim,” Draal snarled, now attacking in earnest. “He was twice the Trollhunter you are.”

Draal may not know this Trollhunter but Jim would have never pretended to be a fallen warrior to fool their friend.

The new Trollhunter back pedaled but finally started counter attacking. They ranged across the forge vaulting off platforms and dodging blades. The troll looked like he wanted to answer Draal’s accusation but at the speed they were moving there was no room for talk.

It was bad timing that got him in the end.

Draal was just bringing his ax down on his opponent when a blade came out of the wall and launched him across the forge over the edge of the cliff. He managed to grab the edge but was left dangling over the deep. The new Trollhunter appeared above him. He stared down at Draal with his sword raised…

And then with a chuckle he drove it into the stone beside him.

“Come on,” He said holding out a hand. “Don’t make it weird.”

The breath seemed to leave Draal’s lungs as he stared into familiar blue eyes.

“Jim?” He whispered. “But how?”

“I think we both have a bit of explaining to do but this would be a better conversation to have on solid ground,” The Trollhunter… Jim said pointedly.

Draal took his hand and was pulled to safety.

The forge was still active around them, so Jim detached a glaive from his hip and threw it across the room striking the off button with easy precision. The center platform dropped back to the floor and the blades vanished into their alcoves.

Jim sat down on the edge of the forge, feet hanging into the abyss and patted the ground beside him. Draal sat. For a moment they stared into the depths in silence.

“So you really are Draal right?” There was a quiet waver in the troll’s voice.

Draal nodded.

“How are you alive?” He asked. “Angor stabbed you through the heart. I saw you fall. There’s no way you didn’t shatter.”

“I don’t know,” Draal said.

He showed the other troll his hand with the veins of clear crystal running through the deep cracks in his stone.

“I think that I did. I don’t know how I survived but perhaps the magic of Merlin’s Cavern put me back together.”

He side-eyed Jim.

“What about you? How did you become…” He waved a hand at Jim’s body. “This?”

Jim chuckled.

“A half-troll you mean?”

Draal blinked at that.

“Half?”

“Indeed,” Jim said. His eyes turned back to the cavern before him, but his gaze was much farther away. “After you… fell. We lost the staff to Gunmar, but… deeper in the cave we found something else… someone else: Merlin.”

“Merlin?!”

Jim nodded.

“He was in some sort of enchanted sleep and we woke him. A… a lot happened after that,” Jim frowned. “Gunmar used the staff to free Morgana from her prison so she could bring the Eternal Night… and,” He sighed. “Merlin and I talked. He didn’t think I was strong enough to take on Morgana… let alone her and Gunmar and Angor Rot. So he made me an offer: A potion that would change me.”

“Into a… half-troll?”

Jim nodded.

“Yes,” He said. “It was an adjustment. In the end we defeated Gunmar and Morgana. Angor actually helped us.” He added quietly. There was regret in his gaze. “He died a hero.”

There was a moment of silence between them. Draal studied Jim’s face as the boy… no man… stared off into the distance, dark brows low and pensive. There were scars crossing his face that the troll didn’t know. He wondered what battles he’d fought… what other comrades he’d lost.

Then Jim drew in a breath and let it out slowly. His shoulders relaxed. He gathered his legs under himself and stood. Draal also stood.

They stared at each other for a long moment.

“You’re a lot smaller than I remember,” Jim said finally.

Draal let out a surprised and offended snort at that but before he could respond Jim moved forward and wrapped his arms around him. Draal blinked in surprise and then reciprocated.

“It’s funny.” Jim said softly. “I knew you for a fairly short amount of time but it was such an important time to me. You taught me how to fight….” He trailed off for a moment. “Back in the cave I said you were a friend to me… and you are but in the centuries since…”

He hesitated again and pulled back to look Draal in the eyes.

“Well… I don’t know how you see me,” He finally continued. “But I’ve always thought of you as my brother.”

“Oh,” Draal said, surprised.

He blinked and then rubbed absently at his prosthetic. It was a bit of a strange thought. He hadn’t thought of it before.

He remembered when he first met Jim. And then their fight. –It was shameful in hindsight. Especially seeing the man he’d become. Jim had been a mere whelp who had just picked up the sword. - Despite that Jim had accepted him into his life. The way he had come to respect Jim. Training him. Fighting alongside him. Talking about small and silly things with him.

Something settled in his chest.

“Trollhunter… Jim.”

Jim looked up at him.

“I would be honored to consider you my brother.”

Jim’s face lit up in a wide toothy smile. Draal huffed in amusement. He tilted his horns forward and Jim also bent his head. The Rested their horns together for a moment.

It was good, Draal thought. It was good to have family again.

They drew apart.

Draal eyed Jim for a moment and then dropped to all fours abruptly.

“So, Trollhunter, I hear it’s been over a thousand years. Why don’t you show me what you’ve learned?”

Jim blinked and then a fierce and toothy smile lit up his face. His tail lasted in excitement. Draal couldn’t help but to think that being a troll suited him. In a flash he was armored again with Daylight in his hands.

“With pleasure.”